Here is a small collection of some of the Layout and PreVisualization that I created for the Mass Effect and Dragon Age and Dead Rising franchises.
All of the Animatics were created in 3DS Max or Maya using blank rigs and simple level geometry. I would then block in rough pose-to-pose animation (or occasionally old motion capture footage from our library) to get a feel for action, timing, and edit of each scene. This process is very quick and allows for frequent iteration until the scene is ready to be passed along to Motion Capture and Animation.